During the rest which the troops took here, Alexander, many of his
generals, and many thousands of his soldiers, married Asiatic women,
and, with the same view of bringing Europe and Asia into one form of
civilization, great numbers of Asiatics were enrolled in the victorious
army, and trained in the European fashion. For the improvement of
commerce, the Tigris and Euphrates were cleared of obstructions. From
Susa, in the autumn of 325 B. C., Alexander visited Ecbatana (in Media)
and thence proceeded to Babylon, which he entered again in the spring of
324 B. C.
It was the intention of Alexander to make Babylon the capital of the
empire, as the best medium of communication between east and west; and
he is said to have meditated the conquests of Arabia, Carthage, Italy,
and of Western Europe. For commercial and agricultural purposes he
intended to explore the Caspian Sea, and to improve the irrigation of
the Babylonian plain. All his plans were made vain by his sudden death
by fever at Babylon, in the summer of 323 B. C.